The story of Darkmoon: The beastwars years
by Tahara Sylvanna
Summary: Set after "Coming of the fuzors pt2" A new Femme is added to the Maximal side... but there are more surprises along the way.


Disclaimer: I don't own transformers, but Darkmoon, Slink, and other characters are of my own creation.

Time: A short time after "Coming of the fuzors: pt 2"

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Part One: Enter the femme fighter.

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The pod fell out of the sky like a shooting star, blazing toward the primitive earth and inevitable entrance into of what had been dubbed the Beast Wars by Optimus Primal. It streaked toward the ground, firing its retro thrusters, slowing it's decent. The pod landed with a metallic thud, and hissed as its thrusters cooled. The area around it was redwood forest. Needles carpeted most of the forest floor, as patches of undergrowth fought silently for sun. However, it was the middle of the night, and the moon was full and filtering through the tops of the trees.

A small scanner rose from the pod's top, and scanned the area for life forms. Nearby, the underbrush rustled as a sleek female wolf exited her hiding place. Curious, she sniffed the pod as the green light washed over her jet-black body, causing her pupils to become smaller. The scanner withdrew, causing the wolf to instinctively duck. A fierce bright light flashed out of the pod, and the wolf retreated into the underbrush, leaving the mysteries of the sky for other animals to solve.

Within a few moments, the pod hissed and opened. A tentive black paw was placed on the covering of needles, and a larger copy of the female wolf stepped out to survey her surroundings. Sniffing the air and perking her ears, the night was revealed to her. Golden eyes looked up to see the moon, as her programming came online.

"Darkmoon, maximize."

Now golden optics viewed the world around her, her stasis pod dully illuminated by the moonlight, the trees, stars, and then she noticed the pair of golden eyes looking at her. "Beast mode." Now wolf stared at wolf, and her wild counterpart left the brush line and walked slowly up to her. Instinctively, the larger wolf's body language showed her smaller cousin that she meant no harm. The wolf touched Darkmoon with her nose, and wagged her tail in acceptance. A sound was heard, the loud flapping of wings. The feral wolf looked up as a large bird of prey swooped down towards them, and left it's larger kin standing as it retreated once again into the underbrush.

"I take it you're our new maximal." The bird spoke with a feminine voice, and nodded her head towards Darkmoon. "Ah reckon Ah am," Darkmoon replied with a wolfish grin, her odd accent surprising the bird somewhat.

"Nice to meet you, the name's Airrazor." The red tail hawk motioned with her head, "Do you want to meet the rest of the Maximals? You landed pretty far out here, so it'll take a while to get back." She began to walk slowly away from the wolf.

Darkmoon nodded and walked up beside her, "Mah names Darkmoon. Whut are we studyin here?"

"We're not studying anything, we're in a war now. I'll fill you in on the way…"

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            Rattrap was sitting at the console half asleep when Airrazor and Darkmoon entered the Axalon. Darkmoon remained quiet, thinking over the information she had just received. Airrazor poked Rattrap out of his sleep. Startled, he exclaimed "For the lovea gouda! You always sneak up on sleeping rats?" Airrazor smirked and motioned to Darkmoon. "We've got ourselves a new maximal here."

Rattrap jumped up and looked at the wolf, "Weeell, I guess I'd better go get the boss monkey." He walked off and a few moments later, returned with a blue bot. Darkmoon looked at him and maximized, measuring near his height.

Darkmoon looked up at him and saluted, "D-Luna, reportin fer duty. Call me Darkmoon though." Optimus nodded, "Very well, Darkmoon, I'll have Rattrap give you a tour of the base, and you can meet the rest of the crew in the morning.

Rattrap looked exasperated, And I've always gotta play tour guide, yeesh. 

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Darkmoon awoke the next morning from her sleep mode, and exited out of her new bunk. She was supposed to come to a meeting set by Optimus. It was for her to introduce herself to the other crewmembers, and become familiar with them.

            Her golden optics looked around the room at the different bots. There was Rattrap, the smart mouth rodent that she had met last night, and Airrazor, the quiet hawk that had found her. Optimus was there as well; the blue looking ape bot had a quiet air of authority.

            Optimus looked at the others, "This is Darkmoon, I want you all to make her feel welcome, I leave it to you to make your introductions."

            The first to speak was a yellow and black cat looking bot, he waved a bit, "I'm Cheetor, engineer in training and patrol." He looked like he wanted to say more, but he stopped.

            Next was a rather large brown maximal, "Rhinox, I'm the head engineer. A white and black bot followed suit, "My name is Tigatron, I am usually out on patrol."

            Rattrap smirked, "I think you know who me an Airrazor are, no introductions needed."

            A wolfish looking silver bot spoke up next, "I, milady am Silverbot. I work as the rest do."

            The last to speak was a brown bot, who growled slightly before speaking. "Dinobot, military strategy and combat."

            Seeing all the introductions done, she decided to introduce herself. "Mah name's D-Luna, though Ah prefer Darkmoon. Ah'm a class A fighter, close combat style. If ya'll doan mind me askin, where do we go ta train?"

            Most of the maximals looked at each other, again, Cheetor was the first to speak. "You're a fighter? I don't remember any fighters on the roster…"

            Darkmoon smiled, "That's cause Ah signed up as a laborer. Ah was perdy sure no body'd want a fighter round here on a science mission. Though the way Ah see it, ya'll were nuts goin out here without one. Ya never know what situations ya might run into. Sides," She shrugged, "Ah reckoned this ta be a vacation anyways. My luck gits me inta this war here, so Ah'm glad Ah signed up now."

            This seemed to be accepted by the majority of the maximals, Rattrap was skeptical however. "You mean you're one of the regular warriors? I tink somebody musta pulled a few bolts loose in that head of yours. Those guys get slagged all the time!"

            Darkmoon smirked, "Well, that's jus a setback." She then noticed Dinobot, he was no longer looking at her with contempt… he seemed to be appraising her for something.

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Part Two: Fighting the Warrior.

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Darkmoon left the base a short time later, to her dismay; the ship had no training facilities besides a VR target range. She paced a few hundred yards away from the base and looked around for a good place to start. A few large rocks were scattered randomly in a small open meadow, she smiled to herself Perfect. She began throwing kicks and punches into the air, reminding herself of her well practiced moves. She flipped onto one arm, spun her legs in the air and landed back in a standing position.

She picked up a small rock, and tossed it into the air. As it fell back down to the earth, she threw her fist out at it and watched it explode into dust. A few more rocks met her other hand then her feet, as she lashed out to destroy the targets. She kept it up for a cycle more.

Satisfied, she began the next part of her training. Sitting down, she reviewed the battle information that was stored in her processor. Millions of moves, situations, combat sequences all flashed on the inside of her optics.

A sudden whistling in the air brought her hand up to catch the foot of an unknown attacker. She opened her optics to see none other than Dinobot. "Well… Tryin ta catch me off guard?" Darkmoon half smirked, half sneered as she released his foot.

Dinobot backed up a few paces. The femme had actually caught his foot, impressive for a maximal. His gruff voice answered her, "I was simply testing you, I wish to see how well you fight."

Darkmoon stood up, "Well if that's all, Ah can oblige ya. You fight hand ta hand er with weapons?" She smiled in a challenge and moved into a fighting stance. "Ah prefer hand ta hand."

This almost took Dinobot off guard, it was a refreshing attitude in a maximal, though one she'd regret later. "Hand to hand it is then." Quicker than Darkmoon had expected, his foot slammed into her midsection.  She was knocked to the side and dug a slight depression into the ground.

What surprised Dinobot was that she got back up. Her golden optics locked onto her opponent and she assumed her stance once again. Dinobot almost smirked, but he knew now not to underestimate this one. He threw a punch her way and it was blocked, though at the same time, she came up with a knee to his midsection sending him sideways. He didn't fall regaining his footing quickly. He crouched again, ready.

They met each other, and blows rained down only to be blocked or dodged. Each kick, each punch was countered by the opponent only to be followed by the retaliatory strike, which was blocked as well. It seemed that it was no longer a fight, but a well choreographed dance with each of the players giving it their all.

Sundown saw the two locked in combat still, this time trying their strengths by locking fists and battling with brute force, suddenly Dinobot gave in, but too quickly. The two flipped over, and Darkmoon was sent flying. She flipped in midair and skidded to a halt on her hands and feet, running as she hit the ground.

Meanwhile Dinobot had flipped up after tossing her, and was ready for her return. He pulled his fist back, just as she pulled hers. A loud clang was heard as the two met, and then their forearms did as well. Face to face the looked at each other in challenge once again.

This would have most likely gone on all night, had it not been for one little rat. Rattrap was beginning his rounds when he heard the clang. "What in tha namea Gouda?!" He ran quickly to the area, readying his gun and clicking on his comm. "Hey youse guys better get here quick, there's somethin happening down in sector four!" He peeked his head over the rock that he was using for cover and tried to see in the dim light. He commed again, "Looks like Dinobot's fightin somebody, I can't tell who." The comm. came to life "We're on our way Rattrap."

Dinobot and Darkmoon jumped back from each other, and began their volley of punches and kicks anew. Dinobot had just blocked a punch from Darkmoon and was going for a kick when a floodlight washed over them. Darkmoon blocked the kick and looked up.

They both stood up out of their combat positions as Optimus's voice blared out, "What do you two think you're doing?"

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Part Three: Trouble, and new recruits.

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Optimus looked at Darkmoon and Dinobot, though Dinobot looked back at him as if he dared him to yell. The big ape was pacing back and forth "Will one of you tell me what started that between you two?" He looked at Darkmoon.

Darkmoon shrugged, "We were trainin, we didn' notice it git dark."

Rattrap butted in, "Training! You two looked like you were gonna slag each other!"

"Well, tha way Ah see it, ya deserve ta git slagged up if ya cain't keep up in tha trainin, n though Ah ain't one ta scrap anybody, chippin tha paints ok." Darkmoon half smiled as she looked at the scrapes on her own metallic armor.

Optimus looked at her as if her motherboard had fried. "You're serious? So this wasn't a personal fight?"

Darkmoons optics widened, "Is that whut yer worried bout? Heh, nah, it whut'n nothin personal, we were jus trainin."

Optimus looked like he wanted to say something else, but kept it to himself. Perhaps now Dinobot will quit harping on training the rest of us… Dinobot had his respect, true enough, it was just that his militaristic style didn't sit well with Optimus's core programming. "You're dismissed then."

Cheetor cornered Darkmoon out in the hallway. "Hey, Darkmoon, where did you learn to fight like that anyway? It looked almost identical to Dinobot's style." Darkmoon smiled, she knew that was a nice way of asking if she was a reformed Predicon, Rattrap had let that slip out during his tour. "Hun, Ah was trained ta fight Preds."  Cheetor looked thoughtful, but Darkmoon didn't give him time to ask anything else, walking away to her quarters to escape.

Morning found her already awake and outside, sitting atop the Axalon in deep meditation. Rattrap watched her through Sentinel's camera, and turned to Cheetor who was looking over his shoulder. "I tell ya, that femme has gotta have a few circuits loose, or half pred." Cheetor shook his head and half smiled, "Well, at least we can count on her when the preds attack."

The computer screen suddenly came to life; another stasis pod was falling! Rattrap radioed the others, "Hoo boy, we've got a new Maximal and it's comin in quick! All patrols get to sector k, and watch out it's close to Pred turf!"

Cheetor transformed into beast mode and leapt out of the lift. There stood Darkmoon, already in beast mode and waiting. Cheetor nodded, and took to the air with Darkmoon bounding after him on the ground. 

The feline reached the pod first, and there was strangely no sign of any Predicons. Darkmoon trotted up to Cheetor as he inspected the pod. Darkmoon looked, the pod was operational, and it's DNA scanner lifted out of a hatch and swept the area. Cheetor moved back a few paces, and sat ready to defend the pod from any predicons. Darkmoon stood, and tested the wind with her nose… something wasn't right. She bristled, and shifted her eyes around for movement.

Cheetor had seemed to notice this too, and the transmetal feline growled. "I don't like this… it's too quiet."

The pod flashed, then hissed, telling the two maximals that it's occupant was ready to meet the world. A pointed muzzle was seen first, and then the rest of the large mouse-like creature seemed to flow out of the pod. The new maximal stood, blinking its small black eyes. The beast mode chosen was a weasel, with black paws and top of the head, along with a sleek gray body.

"Well, it's good to finally be out of that blasted pod." The new femme suddenly smiled in an odd way. "Too bad you two are maximals."

Both Cheetor's and Darkmoon's eyes became round, but the wolven femme recovered first. "Darkmoon, Maximize!"

"Cheetor, Maximize!" The small cat followed suit, just as the new pred called out her own transformation code… and her name as well. "Slink terrorize!"

The sound of guns erupted from the brush around them, and two predicons held their guns at the now back-to-back maximals. Darkmoon's eyes glowed as she charged her eye lasers, and Cheetor pointed his gun at the red predicons face.

They were outnumbered, and Slink pulled out her own pistol to fire the first shot…


End file.
